Endangered Species: PART 1 Page 6

  Levell snorted. “That’s a good one. That bunch of bozos is ineffective and useless. They seem incapable of formulating or presenting alternatives and solutions. They’re devotion is preening for the cameras, and to insure their own reelections, and spending a lifetime feeding at the public trough.”

  “That leaves the Ship of State rudderless. There’s only one possible outcome, and it’s not a happy one.”

  “That’s why the Society has to safeguard our freedom any way necessary until the electorate comes to its collective senses and puts a trustworthy leader back in the Oval Office.”

  Levell terminated the call and handed the Sat phone back to Rhee.

  * * *

  He wheeled himself back down the hall and into the lounge. McCoy was chomping on a fresh unlit cigar and engaging in an animated conversation with Maureen Delaney. As Levell rolled up, McCoy saw the serious look on the other man’s face.

  “Something up?” McCoy said.

  “Yeah, I had a call from Brendan Whelan. I’ll tell you about it later.”

  McCoy got both messages. He stood up and said, “I’m going to get a fresh drink and step outside for a smoke.”

  As he was walking away, Delaney said, “You had a call? I thought communications in and out of here were difficult at best.”

  “That’s not quite accurate. We have a Sat phone system that utilizes 1024 bit asymmetric encryption. IT would require three hundred billion MIPS-years to crack it.”

  “MIPS, meaning one million instructions per second?” Delaney said.

  “Yes, a MIPS-year is thirty-one and a half trillion instructions. Multiplied by three hundred billion, cracking the code becomes virtually impossible. In addition, the system utilizes a second layer of 256 bit symmetric encryption. It converts voice to encrypted data using a constantly changing mathematical formula. Typically, the encrypted stream would be deciphered by the receiving unit, which converts it back to voice. All calls are routed directly to the receiving unit by way of a direct space link, thus avoiding use of a ground station.”

  “So your caller also had a Sat phone?”

  “Yes, but in situations where the receiving unit is not a part of the system, and therefore susceptible to interception, we use a different strategy. In that case the call is directed to a special ground station where the encrypted data is converted to voice and directed to the non-systemic receiver through any transmission link on the planet. In addition, the special ground station is mobile and can be transported quickly to a new location by truck, ship or aircraft. For example, the call could be routed through a ground station in Kenya, so that a tracer would indicate the call was being transmitted from Nairobi.”

  “Technology is my world,” Delaney said. “But the state of encrypted communications just amazes me.”

  “Mostly sounds like techno-babble to me,” Levell said.

  She leaned forward and smiled at him. It was one of the most beautiful and radiant smiles he had ever seen. He was momentarily transfixed.

  “It may be techno-babble to many of us, Cliff, but there is no question that you are doing an amazing job,” she said softly. “You are the only man who could have built this organization.” She leaned over and kissed him gently on the cheek.

  Levell’s craggy features filled with color. “Are you hungry?” he stammered. “I’m starving. Let’s eat.”

  Chapter 7—Dingle, Ireland

  The two burly Irish cops hadn’t reached the door when Caitlin Whelan swept it open. Without hesitation she threw her arms around the older of the two men and they exchanged a tight embrace. Next she grabbed the younger man and repeated the hug.

  The older man said, “Are you alright, Cait?”

  She smiled. “Yes, Da.”

  Her brother, Padraig, said, “And Brendan and the boys?”

  “They’re fine; we’re all fine. But there are some other buggers who didn’t fare as well.” She motioned her father and brother to follow her. She led them through the large foyer and headed toward the kitchen area on the other side of the dining area. The two men couldn’t help but notice the corpse stiffening at the bottom of the stairs that led up from the foyer.

  “That would be some of Brendan’s doin’, I suspect,” Tom, the older of the two men, said.

  “It is,” Caitlin said. There was unmistakable pride in her voice.

  “Your phone call said there’d been an attack of some kind. I suppose there will be more bodies scattered about.”

  “A few. Bren stacked them out back except for the one you saw in the foyer,” she said as they entered the kitchen. “Then there’s that one,” she pointed to the gravely wounded intruder her husband had interrogated.

  The two policemen swiftly surveyed the room. It was like a scene out of a slasher movie. Blood and gore were splattered over a large area. Clearly the dying man wasn’t the only one who had bled out here. Their eyes came to rest on Brendan Whelan.

  “So, Mr. Whelan, what have you got to say for yourself, going about killin’ folk in my police district?” Tom said with mock sternness.

  “Your daughter loves me deeply.” Whelan smiled easily as he said it.

  Tom broke into a broad grin. “I see. Well, in that case I suppose Paddy and me will have to do everything in our power to help you clean this mess up and see that no one else learns of it.”

  “With the exception of a couple of family members, commercial fishermen. It’d be best to dispose of the perps at sea,” Paddy said.

  “You’ll be pleased to know, Da, that one of your own grandsons, Sean, killed one of the murdering scum himself’” Caitlin said.

  “Did he now? For sure the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. In this case, both trees,” Tom said. “But, if these men didn’t get the chance to kill anyone, we can’t really say they’re murderers, can we? Although I’m sure they earned that reputation before they broke into the wrong house tonight.”

  Whelan said, “Unfortunately, they did kill someone tonight.”

  Both men’s eyes locked on Whelan.

  “Poor Miss Tankersley also was in the wrong place tonight.”

  Both of the cops were silent for a moment or two. Then Tom said, “The poor old thing. She was a real sweetheart. Wouldn’t have hurt a soul. What a pity.”

  “’Tis a pity,” Paddy said. “She’s been comin’ here on holiday for as far back as I can remember, since I was a kid at least.”

  “The bastards that done her in will be easy enough to dispose of,” Tom said. “But I don’t want to include Miss Tankersley’s remains with scum like that. Any ideas?” He looked at each of the others in the room, ignoring the wounded man on the floor.

  “We can’t send her remains back to her hometown without generatin’ an official police report,” Paddy said.

  “That would be problematic,” Whelan said.

  “There’d be no way to avoid an investigation,” Tom said.

  Paddy nodded. “And there likely would be an autopsy somewhere along the line.”

  “How did those bastards kill her?” Tom said.

  “Smothered her with her own pillow,” Whelan said.

  No one spoke for a few moments. Finally Tom said “An autopsy would determine that as the cause of death. People don’t smother themselves, so foul play would be obvious.”

  “After all these years of comin’ here on holiday,” Paddy said, “everyone knows she stayed here at the Fianna. Her personal habits are well known, too. Always eats at the same places, often retires early, isn’t very adventurous.”

  “She did occasionally drive over to Tralee,” Caitlin said, referring to County Kerry’s largest town. “She liked to attend shows at Siamsa Tíre.”

  Her brother, Paddy, gave her a puzzled look. “Siamsa Tíre is the home of the National Folk Theatre of Ireland. You mean to say she enjoyed Irish history and culture? And a Brit at that.”

  Caitlin shook her head and smiled at her brother’s naiveté. “No, Paddy, the theatre schedules those performances b
etween May and September. From October to April, they host a wide variety of programs, including touring productions of musicals and dramas.”

  “How would Miss Tankersley travel to Tralee?” Tom said.

  “By car,” Caitlin said. “It’s the blue and white Mini Cooper parked out front. Why?”

  “An automobile accident. Perhaps at Connor Hill on R560,” Whelan said.

  “Exactly,” Tom said. “That’s a nasty bit o’ road, especially in the dark. Worse yet if you’re not a local.”

  Padraig said, “A car tumblin’ down that cliff would surely catch on fire and burn up before anyone could get to it.”

  “And burn up whatever was in it,” Tom said.

  Paddy nodded and said, “Burn it beyond a coroner’s ability to determine that the cause of death was other than the plunge down the hillside and the fire that followed.”

  “Or,” Whelan said, “that the death may have occurred a few hours earlier than the fire.”

  Caitlin had been listening to the conversation. “The poor dear and I once had a conversation over tea about the afterlife. She was clear that she wanted to be cremated when she passed.”

  * * *

  By late the next morning, Tom’s brother and two of his sons, commercial fisherman from Dingle, had disposed of the remains of the Ukrainian would-be assassins. The fifth man also had died of his wounds. The fishermen sailed around Slea Head, the closest point in Europe to America, and through the Blasket Islands into the North Atlantic. The corpses had stiffened and being buried under a load of ice hadn’t helped. The fishermen sawed them into smaller pieces and packed them in thick burlap sacks along with heavy stones. The grisly parcels plunged swiftly through the icy waters to the barren mud far below.

  Tom and Paddy personally handled Miss Tankersley’s final arrangements on Connor Hill, the highest mountain pass in Ireland. They picked a place where the R560 made a sharp, blind turn to the left in a series of s-curves along a steep escarpment. As the Sergeant in Charge of the An Garda Síochána station in Dingle, Paddy had primary responsibility for the routine investigation of the accident. He reported in turn to the District Superintendent for County Kerry in Ardfert, about 9 kilometers west of Tralee. Tom was the District Superintendent.

  Tom and Paddy hadn’t left the Fianna House the previous evening until several armed members of their extended family had been posted as sentries. The Irish are close. Family ranks as the top priority along with religion. The residents of the Dingle Peninsula are particularly tightknit and hardy. During the Dark Ages, when literacy was extinguished in Europe, Irish monks living in beehive-shaped stone huts called Clocháns near the tip of the Dingle Peninsula kept it alive. Later, when the English occupied the Island, they banned the use of Gaeilge, the Irish form of Gaelic. It survived on the Dingle Peninsula.

  The Whelans spent the remainder of the night scrubbing away the gruesome evidence of the evening’s activities. By dawn, the only thing that differed from the night before was a patch of carpeting at the foot of the stairs where one of the intruders had bled out. They cleaned it as best they could, but traces of the bloodstain remained. Caitlin solved the problem. She poured bleach on the spot. At eight o’clock in the morning, she called a friend who was in the carpet business and explained that there had been a cleaning mishap. He promised to send out a crew that same day to replace the carpeting.

  At mid-morning, Tom and Paddy returned to the Fianna House, and for the sake of appearances, delivered the official announcement that it’s sole current guest, Miss Elenora Tankersley, had perished the previous evening in an unfortunate one-car accident. The Whelans confirmed that she had told them she was going to Tralee to enjoy a touring version of Oliver! Her family in Sheffield had been notified by local authorities and arrangements made to ship her personal possessions.

  Caitlin made tea for her father, brother, and herself. Whelan, Irish-born, but American-raised, opted for black coffee. They settled around the table in the now-spotless kitchen. The faint odor of bleach barely intruded on the nostrils.

  “As it’s been quite a busy morning already, we should dispense with the small talk,” Tom said in Gaelic. It was a language the four of them spoke, but any outsiders who might be eavesdropping on the conversation wouldn’t be able to follow it. He looked at Whelan. “Have you an idea why those men were after you, and who might have sent them?”

  Whelan swallowed some of his coffee. “They were Ukrainians. I was involved in some wet work in the States last year. I believe this was related to it.”

  Tom nodded. “I remember. Somethin’ to do with the American political scene; a takeover attempt by radical leftists working in concert with those bastard Russians. An attempt was made on the life of the president, but the shot took out the attorney general instead. The reports also indicated that the death of Chaim Laski, the billionaire, was a part o’ that.”

  He paused and glanced at Caitlin then back to Whelan. “We knew from things you had shared with us previously that you might have had a hand in that.”

  “Not the assassination attempt. That was the president’s own backers,” Whelan said.

  “How do the Ukrainians fit into all of this?”

  “Laski maintained a private force for protection and whatever dirty work he deemed necessary for the achievement of his one-world dreams. The force was made up of Ukrainian hoodlums. My colleagues and I killed a few dozen of them.”

  “So these men were a part of Laski’s organization?”

  “No. Laski was just an overpaid bagman for a much larger, more complex shadow organization.”

  “The Russians?”

  “No. I’ve been told it’s a domestic organization with international connections. Its power structure uses the Russians and anyone else in an effort to fundamentally change the United States political and economic systems.”

  “So, are you sayin’ they sent the Ukrainians?”

  Whelan slowly shook his head. “I doubt they give a damn about me.”

  “Who then?”

  “Laski had a very dangerous man running his security force. He survived.”

  “Another Ukrainian?”

  “No. He was raised in the Ukraine, but he was born Irish.”

  The other three exchanged quick glances.

  “The hell you say! An Irishman?” Paddy said.

  Tom said, “And you think he may have sent the killers after you for revenge?”

  “I don’t think he did. I know he did. The last one of the intruders to die admitted it.” Whelan paused and looked at Caitlin. “It’s not just a matter of vengeance. It’s more personal than that.”

  “I don’t understand,” Caitlin said. “Does this mean there will be more attempts like the one last night?”

  Whelan nodded. “There will be unless I can find him and kill him first.”

  “Who is this bastard?” Paddy said.

  “His name is Maksym. But that’s not his birth name.” He paused and looked at each of the other three one at a time, with Caitlin last. “Remember I told you a long time ago that I had an older brother?”

  “Yes. He died when you were still a toddler.”

  “That’s what we always thought. He disappeared when he was about six. I was two years old at the time. The authorities and family members searched for months, but eventually my parents accepted that he had been kidnapped. Probably by a sexual deviate and likely murdered. But there had been a tribe of gypsies—Welsh Kale—in the area at the time he disappeared. So it seems he was abducted. Probably sold somewhere on the Continent. Most likely the Ukraine.”

  “It’s why your family emigrated to the States, wasn’t it?” Caitlin said.

  “Yes, a fresh start in a new environment; no painful memories around every corner.”

  Tom was getting impatient. “So what does your family history have to do with this Maksym?”

  Whelan lowered his gaze to the floor briefly then raised his head and said, “My brother isn’t dead. Maksym is my brother.�
�

  The other three sat in stunned silence. Finally, Caitlin said, “If he’s your brother, why is trying to kill you?”

  “I can think of a couple of reasons. He must feel that he failed Laski in some fashion, and he blames me. Killing me will even the score in his mind. Plus I suspect he believes our family didn’t do enough to find him after he was abducted. Growing up on the mean streets of Kiev must have been a nasty experience; the opposite of my own childhood in the States.”

  Tom sat forward in his chair and turned a little to his right to face Whelan squarely. “This has to be a death wish on his part. He’s no match for a man with your unique abilities.”

  Whelan just stared at Tom.

  “Holy Jesus and Mary!” Tom said, as realization dawned. “He’s like you, gifted with a very rare genetic combination that makes him so much stronger, quicker and physically superior to other human beings.”

  Whelan nodded. “Now you know the problem.”

  Chapter 8—Albuquerque, NM

  It was a little past six in the morning, Albuquerque time. Dawn was just breaking on a mid-April day, slowly brightening the arid landscape that paralleled both sides of I-25 north of the city. A first quarter moon hung low on the western horizon like a large half pie descending. The barren satellite was at a 90-degree angle with respect to the earth and sun. Exactly half of it was illuminated; the other half in shadow.

  The digital thermometer on the dashboard of Mitch Christie’s Ford Crown Vic four-door sedan showed forty-three degrees. It was a 2010 model; the next to the last year the car was produced at the St. Thomas assembly plant in Talbotville, Ontario. This one had a blue exterior and interior with the police interceptor and street appearance packages. It also had over 100,000 miles on the odometer and rode like it. The cushioning in the seats was worn out. The springs dug into Christie’s butt. The shocks had worn out long ago. That made handling difficult and added to the discomfort of riding in the car. A myriad of unpleasant aromas filled the vehicle. The smell of stale coffee, old food and body odors clung to the headliner and other upholstery. There were food stains and cigarette burns in the seat covers, or what was left of them after 100,000-plus miles of butts sliding across them. Assorted scratches and gouges marred the dashboard, armrests and center console. There were footprints on the dash on the passenger side where agents had rested their feet. Christie recognized all of them as vestiges of long ago stakeouts.